The Insitute for Justice, an Arlington, Va.-based libertarian legal organization, has filed a lawsuit in Arkansas challenging the requirement that people who work as hair braiders must first be licensed by the state Cosmetology Board.

The suit was filed in federal court on behalf of Christine McLean of Little Rock and Nivea Earl of Jacksonville. McLean has already been fined for braiding without government permission.

“Natural” or African-style hair braiding has been practiced for over 5,000 years. It is time tested and completely safe. But Arkansas considers braiders to be cosmetologists, so it requires that braiders attend cosmetology school for 1,500 hours and take two exams before they can ask for money for their services. Yet braiding is completely different from cosmetology. Unlike licensed cosmetologists—who cut hair, use caustic chemicals, dyes, and other artificial hair styling techniques—braiders just rely on their fingers and combs to create their styles. What’s more is that cosmetology school does not even teach braiding, and the two exams don’t test it.

Similar lawsuits have been filed by the group in other states.

The Institute makes a larger point that we've long made — many Arkansas regulatory boards exist to control competition more than protect consumers.

Speaking of...

Judge David Laser, sitting in the Pulaski County Circuit Court, yesterday struck down two subsections of Little Rock city law regarding taxi permits. Attorneys for Ken Leininger, owner of Ken's Cabs, who sued the city in March over the law, described it as a "sweeping victory in his constitutional challenge to Little Rock, Arkansas’ longstanding taxi monopoly." /more/

A couple of Arkansas Republican legislators rise to the defense of the Duggars. It's a family matter, they say. We beg to differ.

40/29 TV reports that two law officers were shot about 7 a.m. today near Hackett in Sebastian County and at mid-afternoon came word that one of them had died. Later in the day a suspect was taken into custody in the shooting.

A tribute to a great school teacher, Susan Turner Purvis, who died yesterday. Far too soon.

Most Shared

Next week a series of meetings on the use of technology to tackle global problems will be held in Little Rock by Club de Madrid — a coalition of more than 100 former democratic former presidents and prime ministers from around the world — and the P80 Group, a coalition of large public pension and sovereign wealth funds founded by Prince Charles to combat climate change. The conference will discuss deploying existing technologies to increase access to food, water, energy, clean environment, and medical care.

Plus, recipes from the Times staff.

Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) was on "Capitol View" on KARK, Channel 4, this morning, and among other things that will likely inspire you to yell at your computer screen, he said he expects someone in the legislature to file a bill to do ... something about changing the name of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.

So fed up was young Edgar Welch of Salisbury, N.C., that Hillary Clinton was getting away with running a child-sex ring that he grabbed a couple of guns last Sunday, drove 360 miles to the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., where Clinton was supposed to be holding the kids as sex slaves, and fired his AR-15 into the floor to clear the joint of pizza cravers and conduct his own investigation of the pedophilia syndicate of the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

There is almost nothing real about "reality TV." All but the dullest viewers understand that the dramatic twists and turns on shows like "The Bachelor" or "Celebrity Apprentice" are scripted in advance. More or less like professional wrestling, Donald Trump's previous claim to fame.

Longtime KARK anchor Beth Ward died last night from complications of heart surgery, according to a report from THV11.

Rep. Kim Hendren this week filed a bill to prohibits the use of cell phones, pagers, beepers, digital media players, digital cameras, digital game consoles, and digital video or audio recorders for public students during the school day.